Page 16 of Love You Always

“I said I didn’t care who you were. But I know a princess when I see one.”

He couldn’t be farther from the truth, but I’m not sure I care enough to prove him wrong.

We round the side of the kitchen garden, which is a little bit overgrown in that schoolyard garden project way. Kale plants stand waist-high, and their leaves span four feet in all directions. Squash blossoms trail over trellises and give birth to zucchini and yellow squash that are so ripe and perfect that I have to stop myself from snapping one off and taking a bite.

Then there are tomatoes, yellow ones, cherries, larger beefsteak varieties, all growing in raised beds, one after the other as far as I can see in the distance. The entire food garden is surrounded by fruit trees, some of which have still-green oranges and lemons hanging from the branches.

If we weren’t in the middle of such an irritating discussion, I’d ask questions. Beatrix told me that every room at the inn has a bowl of tangerines picked from the orchard on the property, but I don’t see tangerines here. Silently, I take everything in, not even pausing long enough to take out my phone and snap photos. But actually, come to think of it…

Fishing my phone from my purse, I activate video mode and sweep around in a circle, taking in everything around us. Everything except that lumberjack of a man still grumping along in front of me. I allow myself to inhale a deep breath of the orange blossoms that still remain on the trees and the sweet earthy scent of tomato vines. I take a few snaps of some particularly photogenic tomatoes and peppers before daring to pluck a cherry tomato and pop it into my mouth.

Almost like he senses that I’ve just eaten some forbidden fruit, Archer stops walking and stares at me. I take a step closer to him, which also brings me nearer to a vine bursting with tiny yellow tomatoes. I watch him watch me as I slowly reach for a tomato and pluck it from the stem. His eyes stay fixed on my mouth as I open it, drop the tomato onto my tongue, and bite into the sweet, delicious fruit that’s still warm from the sun.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he sizes me up. When his hand reaches abruptly toward me, I flinch, unsure whether he’d actually smack a woman across the face. But his touch is gentle as he removes a stray seed from my chin and flicks it away. “Why don’t people like you?” His voice is quieter now, and the softer tone draws me in, makes me willing to answer his question.

“Because they don’t know me, and they judge me based on things they’ve read in the media or what they’ve seen on screen.”

Slowly, he nods.

“So you’re saying you’re different under the surface?” Now the scrape of skepticism is back, the glimmer of softness gone.

“Aren’t you?” I stare him down, willing him to crack just a little bit and admit that this bad-boy, grumpy asshole routine is just for show. That underneath, he’s a big cinnamon roll softie. Or maybe I’ve read too many rom-com scripts.

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He huffs his frustration and starts walking again.

“Fine, whatever. Think I’m a good guy pretending to be an asshole. Go ahead and love the views and the pretty purple grapes. Buttercup Hill is awesome, couldn’t agree more. Just don’t kid yourself. There’s a difference between dreams and reality. This here, darlin’, this is reality. Just not yours.”

I bristle at the endearment.

Darlin’…

In the year I’ve been with Callum, he’s never called me anything but Ella. No nicknames, no sweet, cute ways of telling me I’m special to him. And it’s fine. I don’t need to be called sweetheart or dear to know I’m his girlfriend. Or fiancée. But hearing the word drip from Archer’s tongue does something to my insides that it definitely shouldn’t when I’m getting ready to marry another man. I check myself because the feeling, along with all the surprising physical reactions to Archer in the pasthalf hour, is wholly inappropriate. And it needs to be killed and buried right now.

But I’m not letting him off the hook about his cynicism. “Explain, sage winemaker. What’s the difference between dreams and reality?”

One corner of Archer’s mouth turns down, forming a sneer. Good. It makes his face easier to dislike. He shakes his head and sweeps an arm in front of us. My eyes catch on his strong hand as he gestures at the land around us.

It’s just a big hand. Get over it.

“Like I said, people like you who come here and fall all over themselves because it’s pretty, and the reality is that what you’re looking at is generations of physical labor. It’s farming, darlin’, plain and simple.”

The words are less pointed this time. The earlier diatribe seems to have robbed him of part of his bite. And there it is again, that word.Darlin’. I wish that hearing it come out of his mouth didn’t have the effect that it did. It’s not that I want to be thought of as his darlin’. Or anyone’s.

But dammit, I work myself to the bone and that one sweet term of affection gives me the odd impression that someone out there in the world appreciates it. It’s nonsense, I know that. Archer doesn’t know or appreciate me. If anything, he’s just dismissed me.People like you.I want to slug him, but that’s not how I was raised.

I was raised to answer back.

“It says something about you that you’ve formed an opinion about me without doing any work whatsoever. I’m just some urbanite who wants to pet a baby chick?” I should be used to it by now. For my entire life, people have looked at the outside package, my dating choices, and my career decisions, and formed opinions. I used to fight against them with my agent, begging her to put me up for dramatic roles, but she refused. “You’re America’s sweetheart. You need to give people what they want.” So I did.

For my entire career, I played to type and had more success than I knew what to do with. But this right here—the idea that a guy who doesn’t know me at all thinks I’m just fawning over grapes because it’s quaint—it really bugs me.

I feel the anger rise in my chest and know what will happen if I let it build unchecked. I’m going to say something to this man that will tank any hope of having my wedding at this magical place. At the same time, I can’t let his incorrect assumption of me go.

“And I didn’t form an opinion out of nowhere. I lived in LA for a while. I know what the people there are like.”

---